How to Market Your Business for All Generations

Every business has an ideal target demographic. Perhaps your designs are suited to young millennials. Maybe you make a product for senior citizens. However, that doesn’t mean you should just ignore the other generations out there. For example, your product might be perfect for seniors, but is it their caregivers who are buying the product for them at times?

Figuring out ways to market your business to different generations is easier than you might think. Here are some tips to help you not only know where to market your message, but how to market it:

Know Your Values

Before you create a single ad campaign, you need to figure out just what your goal is. While the basic goal might be to sell gizmos, that goal likely stems from a desire to help people who need a gizmo in their lives. Once you understand the core value of your company, it becomes easier to see where that value is for all generations.

However, utilizing some of the filtering features at sites like Facebook and Twitter can allow you to run ads that target different generations.

Direct Mail Marketing

Direct mail marketing still has a lot of benefit. Not everyone in the older generation is online, for example, so you won’t be able to reach them with social media marketing. With direct mail, you reach every person you send that piece of marketing material to. Research proves that consumers tend to connect with direct mail on a deeper level than other forms of marketing.

You can find the overall value of a direct mail campaign by determining just how effective a particular campaign is. For example, you can send a direct mail piece to a small portion of your list to see what the impact is before spending the money to release to your full list. In this way, you can try different wording, colors and even materials to see what has the most impact.

Since you have control of the content provided on your blog, it becomes a simple matter of including multiple generations in your content. Let’s look at the example of a bathtub made especially for those with mobility issues. The core audience is seniors who have trouble getting in and out of a traditional bathtub.

One piece of blog content could offer tips for seniors to create a safer bathroom. However, another group that might purchase these tubs are caregivers and children of the elderly. So, you might also write content addressing the needs of the caregiver. For example, you could offer tips for more easily helping a parent with basic daily tasks, including bathing.

In this way, you can test and build out your content so there is something for everyone. A blog naturally lends itself to multiple generational content.

Timing Matters

When it comes to marketing online, your timing is going to make a big difference. At various times of the day, different social media sites are more active. In addition, you’ll have a better chance of reaching a working mom after traditional work hours, dinner and the kids’ bath time, or possibly on the weekend.

Once you figure out the different groups you are marketing to, you can also target specific ads for those groups at the right time and on the right channels. As has been said by many others, timing is everything.

Think Outside the Box

When it comes to marketing, it is important to stand out from the competition. Looking again at the generational groups you plan to market to, you can begin to figure out local events that cater to those crowds. Do you want to sell that gizmo to recent college graduates? Look to set up an informational booth at a local job fair or even on campus close to graduation.

Some other places you can market to specific generations include ad spots during certain radio shows — gardening, for example — doctor’s offices and local newspapers.

Figuring out ways to market your business to multiple generations doesn’t have to be as complicated as it sounds. Create a user persona for each group you want to connect with, and then figure out how to get the word out to each persona.